IBT has translated and published three more books of the Old Testament in the Kalmyk language – Job, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.

The Kalmyk people migrated from northwest China to the European part of Russia (the northwest corner of the Caspian Sea) in the early 17th century. Their language is closely related to Mongolian. They are traditionally nomadic cattle-herders, and are the westernmost ethnic group that practices Buddhism as their traditional religion. According to the 2010 census of the Russian Federation, there are more than 180,000 ethnic Kalmyks, with about 80,000 of them still speaking their native language.

IBT’s list of Scripture texts published in the Evenki language of Siberia has a new addition – the book of Jonah, the Old Testament prophet who tried to run away from God and spent three days and nights in the belly of a giant fish. This book was prepared as a diglot edition, with the Scripture text given in both Evenki and Russian (Synodal version). The publication also includes 13 illustrations that were originally drawn for the Chukchi edition of Jonah, which came out earlier this year.

Russia is big, and the difference in time between Moscow and Yakutia (Sakha Republic) is six hours. I asked our Yakut translator Sargylana about her most recent translation news after she had completed a week of working with the translation consultant at the IBT Moscow office, and during our talk I was surprised to hear that she was getting up at 4 a.m. every day – in Yakutia it was already 10 a.m., and Sargylana didn’t want to get used to Moscow time. However, after a long work day and inevitable household chores in the evening, she was going to bed according to Moscow time, which left her just 5 hours for sleep. But such is her amazing dedication that trying to persuade her to take better care of herself seemed useless.